UKIP Farage resorts to chain (e)mails

Today I received, from a well meaning friend, a chain e-mail that he obviously felt make a lot of sense. It had originated from United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage himself and was, as you might expect, full of lots of unwise, cynical, inaccurate and misleading information. All disguised as a ‘We want our country back’ themed piece of extreme right wing rhetoric and urging the receiver to pass it on to ten friends.

Farage talks about how everyone in Britain should buy British products and wear British clothes. People should not be receiving ‘socialist’ benefits at the expense of the working class. He inexplicably refers to our soldiers dying for Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan and admits he talks about fearing God and wants to take Britain back to ‘the good old days’. Oddly he forgets to mention in the chain mail that he wants us out of the EU. Has he finally realized that the reason d’etre of UKIP is untenable and potentially disastrous, as most of our our trade is with EU. I doubt it.

Saying our soldiers died in Afghanistan and and Iraq for ‘Britain’ is asinine.

Only (or even mostly) buying British products would mean buying them ‘even if cheaper imports were available’, so we would need MORE money OR have a LESSER lifestyle. This is also known as ‘protectionism’ and would impact our exports to countries we would no longer buy from, as they would reciprocate to ‘protect’ their home market from us! This is on top of the loss of EU business I mentioned.

Telling people to wear ‘British’ clothes is fascist… banning full-face burkas may be a different matter… they should be worn only during religious observance. Likewise, full face ski masks and helmets should be banned, unless the wearer is skiing or biking…. and what if fashion changed, as it regularly does and Britains wanted to wear foreign clothes? Are clothes from the EU like French Fashion also to be banned?

Playing the God-Fearing card is stupid, because only 6% of Brits go to church at any time other than Christmas, funerals or weddings. What about all the Brits who follow other religions, or none?

Farage speaks as if something is wrong with socialism. It’s not just about making sure unemployed or disabled don’t starve to death or are made homeless, or making sure the children of single Mum’s are fed and clothed. Free education, free health service, free fire service, free policing, etc, etc, is all socialism too. Without social provision, paid for from progressive and proportionate taxation, thousands would starve and become homeless and crime would rise as people stole to feed themselves and their children, just as they did in ‘the good old days’ of Dickensian England that Farago wishes to take us back to. Perhaps the starving children could start going back up chimneys? Or maybe he would reintroduce child prostitution?

Does he think everyone who doesn’t vote UK Independence Party is not proud of their country? Dr Samuel Johnson said “Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel.” Farage is the very definition of a cynical, opportunist scoundrel. I am surprised he did not add that he had heard that someone who had received this chain mail but not passed it on to ten friends had died the very next day! Then suggest that you should pass it on to ten friends immediately, because if you did not then the same fate might befall you! The ConDems and Labour are certainly far from perfect… but Farage is about as far from perfect as is humanly possible!